


Tracks in the Sand

by Koyote19



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Animal Transformation, Challenge_duck, F/M, Non-Explicit Sex, batoutofkansas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 21:31:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2443853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koyote19/pseuds/Koyote19
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Batoutofkansas Prompt used: 70. And the now chilly California wind/Is blowing down our bodies again/And we're sinking deeper and deeper into the chilly California sand </p><p>Prompt lyrics from "For Crying out Loud" by Meatloaf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tracks in the Sand

**Author's Note:**

> Set after SPN: 2x17 Heart.  
> Written for the batoutofkansas challenge in April 2007, but also doubling as my contribution for the March challenge_duck : Animal Transformation.

The house sits back from the waterline, a windswept expanse of gold sand stretching from the ramshackle porch to the tip of the swash zone. Peeling blue paint is losing its grip on weathered boards, faded by time and the elements to a soft purple-grey. From the sheltering cliff above, it’s easy to see the holes in the sagging roof, where strong winds have tugged the shingles away and falling rocks left their mark. For a brief moment, the memory of warmth and sunlight, bright colors and dizzying joy is superimposed over decay and neglect.

Stretching his arms wide, Dean stands on the edge and imagines falling headfirst into the wind.

“Looks like there’s a way down over there,” Sam draws his attention back from the edge, and he blinks in surprise as the chilly breeze wraps cold fingers down his neck and beneath the leather coat. “Dude. You coming or what?”

“Yeah.” He can’t help a last glance at the house, then past it where the water changes from green to silver-tipped blue. “Right behind you, Sammy.”

*

John’s been missing for three weeks before Dean gets back to the dingy, one-room apartment they’re using as a home base, nursing bruises and a renewed hatred for redcaps.

Pulling a beer from the fridge, he pokes the remnants of escaped stuffing back into the rip in the couch, and collapses onto the lumpy furniture to decipher the single-most cryptic note his father has ever bothered to leave behind.

Two days, fourteen phone calls and a case of beer later, he gives up in disgust and takes the note to Caleb.

Caleb eventually points him towards Northern California, and Shelter Cove, a town where eight men have gone missing over the last five years, and at least five more men have been found mauled by various wild animals. It’s exactly the type of pattern guaranteed to draw John’s attention, and it’s the only lead Dean has for finding his father. What’s not so obvious is why John went to this much trouble to make sure he wouldn’t follow; but Dean has no intention of letting that get in the way of tracking down or rescuing him.

He drives straight through, with only a single glance at the signs for Palo Alto to the south. It’s sundown when he arrives, and he’s wired from too much coffee, too little sleep, and far too many hours behind the wheel of the battered Camaro Bobby had let him buy dirt cheap after he graduated High School. The car fights him every inch of the way, and every mile he drives in it makes him long for his father’s Impala, and the smooth roar of her engine.

When he pulls into the first motel he finds, habit makes him check the parking lot even when he’s too exhausted to bother with food. There’s no sign of the Impala. But just once, Dean wishes it could be that easy.

Sam’s been gone a year now, and Dean’s been half a step behind John ever since, trying to keep hold of the last remaining person in his life.

 

*

Sam blinks as the Impala picks up speed, turning his head stiffly to look at his brother for the first time since they left San Francisco behind. Again. They’ve gone back three months in a row— since Maddie—each time watching for signs that there were more werewolves. This time, he promises himself silently, is the last. There have been no more deaths. No more need to ever set foot back in the part of the state that has taken away two people that he hoped to love.

Three times is enough for ripping off the half healed scab on his soul and bleeding into the ether.

“It’s over,” he whispers, feeling something clenched in his stomach relax. The wind catches his words, ripping them out of the open window and over the cliff to their left. “Never again, Dean. I…can’t go back again.”

“Okay.” The single word is equally soft, and Sam only sees the nod because he’s still facing Dean. Knuckles whiten around the wheel, and the car turns north along State Highway 101. “Yeah. No more hunts, not here.”

He tells himself the hollow look in Dean’s eyes, before they shutter and lock him out, is only a reflection of his own grief. But for the first time in his life, he wonders.

*

Shelter Cove is smaller than he expected, a fishing town still clinging to the coast in stubborn defiance of the state and interstate highways bypassing it farther inland. It takes less than a day for him to learn the entire town, from diners to library, to the bar just north of the city limits.

It’s one of those towns where strangers stand out, and several people recognize his father’s picture. No one’s seen him in weeks though, and a cluster of fishermen at the diner shrug and casually mention that he might have headed north, towards Eureka instead. No reason to stay, when he wasn’t a fisherman— off season as it was, anyway.

Not a lot of tourists these days, what with the drought driving wild animals out of the nearby Sinkyone Wilderness State Park, and down from the King Range Conservation. Elk and bobcats skirt the edges of town, and once, only weeks ago, someone spotted a bear up by the Stratos Tavern. Not to mention, something’s been feasting on seals, south of the cove, and left a helluva mess.

Dean smiles, and slips the picture back into his pocket. Whatever John came here to hunt…he knows it’s still out there, just as he knows his father wouldn’t abandon the job. So where the hell is he?

He’s still puzzling over that, when exhaustion and thirst draw him to the Stratos. It’s as good a place as any to take a break, and clear his mind. He’s still telling himself that when he steps into the surprisingly well lit tavern and stops dead at the sight of the woman behind the bar.

Her blonde hair is tied back, the heavy mass twisted into a loose braid. His fingers itch to tug at the thick strands of gold, and it takes him a moment to realize she’s laughing at him; he feels the unfamiliar heat under his skin as he flushes, before he gets lost in her eyes and all the blood rushes south instead. Her eyes are the color of the sea, and they make him think of lightening over waves. Shaking his head at the stupid tricks fatigue plays on his brain, he crosses the room and slides onto the nearest barstool.

“What can I get for you?” she asks, dropping the towel beneath the bar and leaning forward, her voice low and whiskey sweet.

“Just a beer,” he manages his best grin, despite the exhaustion, “and maybe your phone number?”

It makes her laugh even harder, and he has to drag his attention away from her face before he gets lost in the crinkles beside her eyes, and framing her mouth. He can’t judge her age, blinking at the sunspots floating across his vision from the bright lights behind her, though he guesses a range from her thirties to late forties. Not that he’s going to consider the minimum ten year age difference between them as an impediment to getting into her bed. If anything, it’s an incentive, not a deterrent.

The requested beer appears on the bar in front of him. The phone number does not. “One beer, darlin’. For anything else, you’ll have to try harder than that.” She flashes him a last quick grin, and heads down towards the far end of the bar.

Her grin is a challenge he can’t pass up, and he spends the rest of the evening flirting with her, only to end up going back to his empty motel room alone. It’s only when the door closes, that he remembers his father’s missing, while he was pursuing a woman that looks unnervingly close to his few ragged memories of his mother— and he wants to be sick.

A week later, when he’s been to every town in a three hundred mile radius only to learn that his father hasn’t gone through a single on of them since leaving Shelter Cove, he drags himself back into the bar and this time manages to scam not only her name and phone number, but her bed for the night.

 

*

Sam wakes when they pull off the 101 in Redway, onto a smaller road heading west towards the Lost Coast. It’s not that he objects to the choice of back roads for travel, with the constant shadow of FBI and police on their tail, but there’s nothing west of them but wilderness and fishing villages, rugged coastline, private beaches and no fast way out of Northern California.

“Dean?” He frowns at the distant look in his brother’s eyes, one he hasn’t seen there since Dean laid down his burdens and let him in on the secret that’s now killing them both. “Where are we heading, man?”

His only answer is a shrug.

“Talk to me, dude. Where are we going? I thought we agreed, no more hunts in California.”

“I did,” Dean flashes the bright grin he normally throws up as a shield. “This isn’t a hunt.” But his smirk is only a pale echo of his usual mask, and Sam knows his brother better than to believe it. Since Dad is beyond worrying about, and Sam’s right there in the car, neither of them bleeding, Sam refuses to let it drop.

“So where’re we heading? Nevada’s that way.”

“We’re not coming back here again.” Dean’s voice is washed out, the way Sam’s felt since Dean took him to the cemetery to leave the flowers he’d never given Madison except in his nightmares of what could have been.

Sam blinks again, trying to follow the twisted path of Dean-logic and failing. “So?”

“So… got somethin’ I need to do too.” Dean doesn’t look at him, as he follows the twists of the road beneath them, the Impala humming contentedly under sure hands. “One last time.”

“Dude…when have you ever been here even a first time?” Sam tries for levity, unnerved by something he hasn’t seen in his brother since Cassie, and that’s—“Man, this better not be another girlfriend you’ve been hiding.”

They both wince as the attempt at a joke falls flat, and even Sam can’t miss the flinch this time. Dean shrugs, but refuses to meet his eyes.

“Hey…” he starts to apologize, though he’s still not sure when this changed from being about his own doomed attempts at love to something else entirely, but Dean only reaches out and turns the radio up louder.

*

Her name turns out to be fitting for the Greek theme of the bar, but not so much for the blonde curls now free of braids and ties. She grins down at him, and shrugs. “I got my father’s looks.”

He can’t think of anything witty to say to that, and simply tugs her over in the bed again. It’s early yet, and they have the morning to themselves before she heads back to the bar and he buries himself once again in mysterious disappearances and animal maulings. So far, he’s refused to change the number of missing to nine. Dad’s still out there, he’s just got to figure out where.

“Dean,” she rolls up onto one arm, propping herself against his chest as her other hand traces down his jaw, “will you stay tonight too?” For just a moment, he sees a trace of fear behind sea-green eyes, before it’s once more hidden behind a laugh and kiss.

“I could be persuaded to stay,” he sinks one hand deep into her hair again, holding her close and enjoying the press of warm flesh against his own. “You gonna make it worth my time?”

“Maybe it’s you that should be making it worth mine, hotshot.” She grins, but the unease flashes across her face as she tumbles back down into his arms.

*

Dean ignores Sam’s stare, as he guides the car through the narrow streets, turning north just past the city limits. The Stratos is darker now, the name changed to something Irish rather than Greek, and he feels it like a punch to his chest.

This is not the place he knew; it’s no longer a place he belongs.

Clenching his teeth, he passes the bar. The Impala purrs beneath him, steady on the sharp twists of the coastal road while the cliff drops to choppy water only yards away.

He sees the shadow long before he sees the lone hawk, circling far above them; for just a moment, he wonders.

He can feel Sam watching him as they pass the former Tavern, turning onto the narrow private road winding across the top of the cliff; to his relief, his brother doesn’t ask again, just leans back and watches the hawk playing on the wind.

*

Her home is a curious mix of traditional Greek and modern California. Dean wanders the rooms after she’s left for the Tavern, his fingers gliding thoughtfully over knick-knacks and antiques, colorful rugs and glazed pottery. He pokes through closets and dressers, flips carelessly through the few books on the shelves. His few memories of a home that’s not his father’s car or a succession of motel rooms, are those of a child. Yet something about the small cottage taps into that part of him that was searching for a place to sink roots— for the first time, he sees the appeal of staying in a single place long enough to gather more possessions than would fit in a single duffle bag.

Bright sunlight streams through numerous windows and skylights, until the white walls turn from dazzling to blinding. Around him, the room swims with the colors of the ocean and sunshine.

It’s nearly enough to make him forget that shadows even exist; at least until he steps out into the hot sand of the beach, and looks back at the cliff looming dark and foreboding above the house. In the far distance above him a hawk circles, calling out plaintively for a mate that is nowhere in sight.

Turning away from the house, Dean starts down the beach. It’s still early enough that the air blowing over choppy waves is cool, rather than muggy. The beach itself is private, and eerily empty. The only living thing he sees for half a mile is the hawk spinning in the thermals above him.

He roams the beach and cliffs for several hours, marveling at the taste of the ocean in the back of his throat and the cool wind on his face. It’s far too nice a day to spend cooped up yet again in the town’s single tiny library—and he’s done all the research he can think of to do. Books won’t find his father; he can only pray that a son can.

Dusk finds him back at the Stratos, nursing a long neck and watching as she wipes down the bar. He feels wrung out and hollow, worry displacing attraction as he puzzles over what to do next. A plate appears in front of him, and he blinks down at rice piled with lamb and grilled onions, and dolmas along one side. She grins at him as she pushes a basket of pita bread across the bar. “You need to keep your strength up.”

He matches her grin with one of his own. “Is that so?”

But somewhere inside, beneath the desire and the infatuation, he knows she’s right. He’s only begun to look for his father. He can’t afford to crumble now, in spite of the voice in his head saying It’s too late. He’s gone.

*

He walks as if he’s caught in a dream, not believing his senses until he feels the rasp of peeling paint against his fingertips. He wants to be anywhere else now, and feels hysteria bubbling in the back of his throat as he takes the first step onto the rotting porch.

“Dean?”

He doesn’t turn, as his eyes lock on the line where sand and water flirt. There is no answer for the question in his brother’s voice— no words to explain losing their father for the first time, on the far western edge of the earth, and the days he’d spent searching; the nights he’d spent in the bar, waiting to drive her home because she was spooked by the sightings of a bear skirting the bar’s parking lot and elk in the road under the full moon.

A hand drops onto his shoulder and he flinches, remembering blood in the sand and tracks around the house at dawn.

Above them, the hawk screams. The sound echoes, and from the distance he hears an answering call.

*

It’s the middle of his second week in Shelter Cove before he encounters anything more feral than the stray tom that hangs around the Tavern in the evenings, hoping for handouts or at least decent pickings from the dumpster. Nine days of walking the beach and hiking through the Sinkyone… and he practically steps on a bobcat leaving the bar as she locks up.

The gun’s in his hand before his brain even has time to process the snarl. He stares at the cat, crouched over the remains of something he fervently hopes is not the orange stray he’s been feeding leftover souvlaki and dolmas.

“Dean?”

He puts out a hand, in warning or protection, and she gasps behind him, long fingers sinking into his shoulder from behind. Dean can feel her trembling where she’s pressed warm against his side in the cold night air.

“Oh gods, no…”

“Shh,” he whispers. Now that the moment is here, he’s almost at a loss for what to do. He can’t bring himself to shoot the cat, but there is nothing but fury in the slitted eyes watching them both. His hand rises without his conscious control, and he wants to laugh at the sheer farce of standing in a Mexican standoff against the largest damn bobcat he’s ever seen in his life. He’s the one with the gun, but it feels like a toy in his hand as reality swirls around them.

The moment is broken by a growl from the darkness behind his Camaro, and he watches in disbelief as the cat puffs up, hissing. It blinks once at them, then vanishes into the darkness.

“Now what?” He turns his head, but whatever was growling is gone into the darkness.  
“That was…weird.”

“Dean, come on. Let’s go, before anything else shows up.”

“Yeah,” he mutters, still staring into the darkness until she takes his hand and the unease fades back into the need to be with her, to protect her.

In the morning, they find tracks and prints in the sand, ringing the house.

 

*

Sam watches his brother worriedly. He doubts Dean even remembers his presence, his gaze distant as he steps onto the rotting porch. Letting his breath out in a hiss, when warped boards don’t immediately collapse beneath worn boots, he gives the rocky cliff above them a last, suspicious look and follows.

The house itself looks as though the next heavy breeze will bring it down, wood and shattered glass strewn across rumpled sand. Ducking his head to look through the broken windows, he catches a glimpse of dusty furnishings and neglect. No one has lived here for a very long time.

Oddly enough, the pale afternoon sunshine doesn’t touch the walls inside, even through the gaping holes that rocks and fallen skylights have left in the roof.

*

Dean reels back, blood welling from the deep claw marks across his chest. He’s off balance, falling back in shock as the massive bear rises on its hind legs, growling and barking at him.

Blood runs hot down his chest, soaking through what remains of his t-shirt in seconds. He scrambles backwards, instinctively groping in the sand for the fallen shotgun, and finding nothing but more sand. Another bark, and the bear lowers back onto four legs, paws as big as his head sinking into loose sand as it lopes after him. Even as the hard edge of the stairs digs into his back, he hears the sound of the shotgun cocking behind him.

“Dean,” her voice is a low hiss, but he can hear worry and what sounds oddly like grief beneath the calm tone. “Come, now!”

“Oh God…”

“On the porch, Dean. Please!” She fires, the shot going wide but sending the bear shying back with another growl of rage. He takes the break for what it is, and scuttles backwards up the stairs. He wants to reach for the gun, the need to protect her warring with the equally pressing need to curl up and let the darkness at the edges of his vision take him away from the pain. When he glances down at his chest, the remnants of his t-shirt are soaked through, plastered to his chest with his own blood; he looks like an extra from the last Nightmare on Elm Street movie, or possibly Friday the 13th part 24.

The bear roars again, shaking its head in rage but backing away from the porch slowly.

“Where did… how… a bear?” He swallows down the confusion with an effort. “Shit, let me have the gun.”

“No,” her voice shakes, but she steps to the edge of the porch with the gun steady in her hands. “Can you get up?”

He tries, and fails to get any farther than his knees. When his vision clears, the bear and gun are both gone, and she’s dragging his left arm over her shoulder with a sob of frustration. Dean makes it as far as the living room, before everything goes black again.

*

“I’m sorry,” her voice catches on a sob, even as she reaches out to touch him. He manages to squirm away from her touch, pressing harder against the arm of the couch, but the movement pulls the still sluggishly bleeding claw marks. His head spins, pain and confusion and loss swirling around him until he thinks he’ll either puke or pass out again. He’s not entirely sure which one he’d prefer at this point. “Dean…”

“Why?”

She doesn’t answer, the grief in her eyes belying the guilt.

“Circe—” it’s the first time he’s spoken her true name out loud, and her eyes widen in shock.

“How did… how long have you known?”

“Since before I came here,” Dean shrugs, ignoring the pain, and looks away, “when I first started looking for my father. You have to undo it. Please.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. You’ve done it before.”

“Those are just legends, stories.” Her lips curve into a smile neither of them feel. “Homer was a romantic idiot.”

“He got the antidote to your potion right, so he couldn’t have been too far off the mark,” Dean muttered. “Or did you not try to turn me too?”

“I never try to turn anyone. It just happens” she sighs, reaching out to cup one hand against his jaw. “Except with you.” Tears slide silver down her cheek, as the late afternoon sun begins its final sweep through the skylights. “You could stay. He’d be safe, and free of this obsession that consumes him—”

“No.” He reaches out to touch her hair, as the sunlight turns it to brilliant gold. Her father, he remembers then, is Helios, a sun god. And his father is a hunter and just a mortal. The irony is not lost on him. “I need him back, human and alive and… my dad.”

“I need you.” Her voice falters, and he knows she can read the answer in his eyes. She nods once, and leans forward to press trembling lips to his. For the first time, he feels her touch without the compulsion, the siren call that’s clouded his thoughts for weeks. He still wants her. Even knowing who she is and what she’s done to his father and the other men, he longs for her touch and her easy laugh to ward off the loneliness that Sam left behind.

She pulls back, her smile sad, and nods.

Dean slowly follows her outside, wincing when he sees the furrows and blood in the sand. There’s no sign of the bear—his father—now, but she barely even glances around as she steps off the porch. She stops at the edge of the swash zone, wavelets rippling around her ankles and the warmth of the sun turning her hair and skin both molten in the light. He can barely see her through blurred vision as he blinks against the light.

They come as the sun sets below the horizon, the bear, two elk, a wild pig, two wolves and the bobcat ranging themselves in a ragged half-circle in the sand. Above them, the hawk shrieks and spins. He doesn’t know what he expects as she turns her back to the ocean, looking up at the bird for a long moment. “Dean. Stay there.”

“Circe…”

“I did love you. I always will. Good-bye, Dean.” She smiles a last time, and pulls the spell back. The burst of light blinds him, sending him stumbling back against the front door. When his vision returns, seven men are standing in stunned silence in the sand, as something swirls in the center of their circle. When the glow dies, the men are staring down at the large hawk in the center, as it hops and screams in the sand.

Dean blinks, and then turns and walks inside.

His father finds him in the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the empty bed with his head in his hands. He doesn’t look up, doesn’t speak until a heavy hand drops onto his head, ruffling his hair in silent understanding.

“You did good, son.”

He doesn’t answer, too sore and tired to move again. After a long moment, John crouches in front of him, and tilts him back enough to look at the bloody marks on his chest. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Where’s the Impala?” Dean raises his head slowly, ignoring the guilt in his father’s eyes.

“Not far. One of the other…victims. She found me while I was checking out his house. I offered him a ride back in your car.”

Dean nods.

“Come on.”

*

“Dean?” Sam’s voice tears him from the past, and he finds himself still standing on the porch, one hand pressed flat to the front door. “Hey. You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You sure? Cause you look kinda…”

“I said I’m fine.” He hears the snap in his own voice, and winces. “Sorry. I just….”

“What is this place?” Sam’s hand drops onto his shoulder, and he can’t help the flinch as he closes his eyes. “We need to go inside?”

“No.” Turning away from the door without opening it, he steps off the porch. The sand crumbles around his boots, and he staggers a little as he sinks. “There’s nothing here.”

The house is empty. He doesn’t need to step inside, doesn’t need to see the crumbled debris of dreams and a life left behind.

Above them, two hawks scream in the cold wind, and head for their nest along the cliff face.

“Come on.” He claps a hand onto Sam’s shoulder. “Let’s go. It’s a long drive to the border, and we’re wasting time.”


End file.
